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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25749361">Like birds in lone sunbeams</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessionalCouchPotato/pseuds/thenonsenseprophet'>thenonsenseprophet (ProfessionalCouchPotato)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings Apply, Angst, Graphic Violence, Hurt No Comfort, I pretend Qui-Gon is actually Bryan Mills from Taken, That m rating is for torture!!!, how to fridge your favorite character: a comprehensive guide, there is one death per chapter minimum</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 03:40:54</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>14,036</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25749361</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProfessionalCouchPotato/pseuds/thenonsenseprophet</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Darth Maul kills a jedi during the fight in the Theed generator complex.</p><p>Qui-Gon Jinn lives with the consequences.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(implied and super messed up), Dooku &amp; Qui-Gon Jinn, Qui-Gon Jinn &amp; Obi-Wan Kenobi, Qui-Gon Jinn/Obi-Wan Kenobi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>114</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Body</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>seven pages of writing in three hours??? it's more likely than you think. </p><p>(edit: warning for torture is effective for this chapter, watch out)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Red plasma sank through layers of cloth and flesh, and Qui-Gon knew that his life had ended.</p><p>The roar of the shield generators dwindled to a faint buzzing in his ears as master, apprentice, and Sith hung in the cheap facsimile of a trance, motionless. The air stilled, but the Force screamed. </p><p>Qui-Gon’s stomach twisted at the expression on his padawan’s face. His third padawan, whose eyes held the same fear as ten years ago, when Qui-Gon had left him on a landing platform with only the promise that he would never be a Jedi. </p><p>The Sith smiled. </p><p>With a sharp flourish, the zabrak and his blade were gone, and Obi-Wan crumpled to the ground, leaving Qui-Gon to stumble like a puppet with its strings cut.</p><p>“No,” he breathed, rushing to where the boy had fallen, far too close to the edge of the generator. His lightsaber rolled away from limp fingers, deactivated when he fell. Qui-Gon snatched it up. </p><p>A litany of half intelligible reassurances reached his ears; with it came the realization that it was his own voice. Somewhere beyond that, the measured footsteps of the Sith echoed lightly through the haze of panic, a steady, ominous rhythm. </p><p>It didn’t matter. </p><p>The singe on Obi-Wan’s tunic was as black as ash, squarely above his heart. His eyes were closed, and he was not moving. The steady warmth Qui-Gon associated with his apprentice was absent from the Force. </p><p>“No,” he whispered brokenly<em> .  </em>Of anyone this could have happened to, how could it be Obi-Wan?</p><p>“I had heard that you Jedi could be inseparable, but I never believed it, until now.” The zabrak’s voice was soft and lilting, and somehow avoided echoing in the large room, even when Qui-Gon could feel his own breaths booming in his ears. </p><p>“There’s an old Sith saying,” he said, twirling that bloody lightsaber between his hands. “My master told me. Never kill the padawan and leave the master alive.” </p><p>The Sith chuckled lightly, arrogantly, and Qui-Gon saw red. As he pulled away from his Padawan, the third one he’d failed, he almost convinced himself that cold fingers tightened on his cloak. </p><p>“Your master will be disappointed in you,” Qui-Gon said lowly. When the Sith laughed, it sounded a million klicks away. </p><p>“Think again,” he retorted with that small, soft voice. Deceptively gentle. Tinny above the pain swimming in the Force. And young. Young like Obi-Wan. Like Obi-Wan was. Like Obi-Wan would always be in Qui-Gon's memories.</p><p>Because of this Sith. </p><p>The snap of Qui-Gon’s lightsaber as it activated was like the fall of a great tree, and in his other hand, Obi-Wan’s discarded lightsaber may as well have been made of ice.</p><p>“Your odds were better before,” the zabrak observed. </p><p>“So were yours,” Qui-Gon growled.</p><p>The fight began the same way it had ended before the impromptu hiatus, with the Sith dancing circles around Qui-Gon and him pushing the attack, to limited results. Qui-Gon roared as the red blade easily pushed blue and green aside, snaking in to glance off his shin. He was being toyed with. </p><p>Another almost-hit on black robes, and his opponent vaulted away. </p><p>“I can feel your anger, Jedi,” the zabrak hissed, pitting sharp yellow teeth on full display. “I can feel your <em> hate </em>.”</p><p>“No,” Qui-Gon snarled, kicking up a spray of sparks from the durasteel floor that was easily dodged. The floor groaned in protest.</p><p>“Is that the only word you know?”</p><p>“No.” An opening, and Qui-Gon aimed a kick at the sith’s center of mass. The gratification of seeing him stumble back curdled at the clear amusement on the boy’s face.</p><p>The Sith sighed. “A shame. Even with all the hate in the galaxy, you’d still be weak.” </p><p>That kick had deposited the Sith far too close to Obi-Wan, Quold-Gon realized frantically. The Sith seemed to come to the same realization at the same time, if his rictus grin was any indication.</p><p>“Nothing to say, hmm? Well then, Master Jedi, I believe our engagement has come to an end,” the zabrak said, taking one deliberate step backwards to fall back into his stance.</p><p>Right on top of motionless fingers.</p><p>Something changed after that. Something had snapped. There was somebody else fighting in his stead, and Qui-Gon didn’t recognize him. He fought with two blades and a swirl of fury, with no discernible lightsaber form where his opponent’s rapid advance began to slowly, genuinely falter. If the Force still existed, Qui-Gon could not feel it. The only thing guiding his attacks was the same blind, unfeeling rage that sparked warningly in his own lightsaber.</p><p>On the next clash of blades, both fighters looked down at the same time as green plasma melted straight through red. Qui-Gon leapt back with his teeth bared and his heart in his throat. The lightsaber’s containment field had broken, and the crystal had most likely shattered along with it. </p><p>This fight was against the Sith, and the chrono, now.</p><p>For once, Qui-Gon hung back, not immediately pressing the attack. Instead, he just stood with both ‘sabers at the ready, one as steady as frost, the other dripping acidly onto the ground in time with the screaming in his heart. </p><p>“Poor old man,” the Sith said softly. “You’ll see him soon.”</p><p>
  <em> “No.” </em>
</p><p>It was a short fight, if it could even be called that. The zabrak took the offence for the first time, but instead of raising his blades to block the incoming blow, Qui-Gon deactivated the blue ‘saber. The green, he swung in a sloppy downwards arc, relishing the sith’s shout of surprise as superheated plasma splattered across black cloth and tattooed skin. Ragged spots grew like acid blooms on his cheek and across his horned scalp, and the sound he made was best described as a gurgle. </p><p>He stopped in his tracks, and Qui-Gon struck.</p><p>In the space between one blink and the next, the double bladed hilt soared through the crackling air, irreparably shattered, and landed only to skid across the floor into the abyss below the generator.</p><p>Even with two ‘sabers crossed at his neck, the zabrak seemed unafraid.</p><p>“It should have been you,” Qui-Gon spat. “You should be dead, not Obi-Wan.”</p><p>“Hmm, maybe,” the Sith said. His eyes flashed. “But orders are orders.”</p><p>The vibroblade didn’t make it an inch between Qui-Gon’s ribs before one large hand clamped down beneath the boy’s chin and <em> slammed </em>him back into the ground. The zabrak screamed as the green blade sank through his shoulder and into the durasteel below. </p><p>“Whose orders?” Qui-Gon asked, dangerously low. </p><p>The zabrak spat in his face.</p><p><em> “Whose orders, you son of a bitch!” </em> The lightsaber cut easily through durasteel and bone alike. The smell of cooking flesh filled the air.</p><p><em> “Why do you want to know? </em>” Snapped the zabrak, face strained.</p><p>“Guess,” Qui-Gon hissed.</p><p>The boy stared at him for a moment, as green ate through durasteel. The top of the lightsaber’s hilt just brushed his shoulder when he spoke again.</p><p>“My Master is Lord Sidious, and his Master is Darth Plaguis.” The boy snorted, and it sounded painful. “He likes to put <em> ‘the wise’ </em> at the end of that, but Sidious has two more apprentices than he should, so that’s debatable.” His face darkened briefly. “Or, I suppose, he had two apprentices.” </p><p>“Who are they?” Qui-Gon demanded.</p><p>“You can’t beat them,” the zabrak wheezed. “I can help you-“</p><p>Qui-Gon’s vision went white, and when it cleared, the green ‘saber had moved from one hopelessly mangled shoulder to another. He gave it a furious twist.</p><p>“Tell me who-”</p><p><em> “Dooku!” </em> The Sith screamed, before his eyes rolled back into his head, apparently passing out from the pain. </p><p>“No.” Qui-Gon stumbled back, already shaking his head in denial. “Couldn’t be.” His master was many things, but a <em> Sith apprentice? </em></p><p>The zabrak offered no response, and the Force was similarly reticent, buffeting him with waves of pain, anger, fear, and his own sickly confusion. </p><p>
  <em> Would Dooku participate in a plot to kill his own grandpadawan? </em>
</p><p>Qui-Gon quickly stifled that train of thought. Kneeling beside the Sith, Qui-Gon pulled the lightsaber free. </p><p>“Who else?” He asked harshly, before the boy could finish gasping and pass out again. </p><p>Ugly yellow eyes rolled to meet his. “You can’t beat them,” the zabrak slurred defiantly. “You’ll die trying.” </p><p>“So be it,” Qui-Gon said with steel in his voice. “Who are the other two?”</p><p>“Hego…”</p><p>“Hego? Hugo who?” But the Sith was fading fast. Qui-Gon growled and shook him insistently. “Hego <em> who </em>, godsdamnit!”</p><p>“I won,” he rasped, suddenly startlingly lucid. “You’re no Jedi anymore, Master Jedi.”</p><p>With a livid grunt of exertion, Qui-Gon sank the green lightsaber into one of the zabrak’s hearts, a mirror of the blow that killed Obi-Wan. The hilt whined with the high-pitched death throes of abused machinery, and the Jedi scrambled back until his shoulders hit the wall. </p><p>“You won’t be seeing him,” the Sith grinned with bloody teeth, and then the lightsaber combusted in a searing glow of melting power cells, and the metal of the casing disintegrated under the pressure of its radiating heat. There was a rising scream as the ‘saber components fell away, until only the fractured crystal seemed to hang in the air. Then the kyber itself imploded like the heart of a dying star.</p><p>When Qui-Gon looked back up, the Sith was dead, and the lightsaber was no more. All he had now was the blade built by his padawan’s hand, clutched against Qui-Gon’s chest like a talisman. Even the Force seemed to have abandoned him. He had never felt so devastatingly, horribly alone.</p><p>Although. There was… <em> something </em>.</p><p>Buried beneath the conflicting roil of emotions during the fight, it had been easy to miss. But now, in the sudden silence and eerie stillness, one thin lone presence flickered like an ember. </p><p>“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon managed, over the clamor of <em> he’s still alive! </em> inside his thoughts.</p><p>His padawan’s fingers, when he grasped them, were cold, and Obi-Wan’s eyes did not open, but he curled inward slightly when Qui-Gon wrapped his cloak around him and picked him up as gently as he could.</p><p>“It’s going to be alright, padawan,” Qui-Gon rumbled, frantically retracing their harried path through the generator complex. There was no answer, but an image trickled through the waning training bond that Qui-Gon just hadn’t been able to abandon. </p><p>
  <em> Remember how you used to stay up helping me study for my astronavigation tests? I would always fall asleep and you would carry me back to my room. </em>
</p><p>He could almost hear the self deprecating laugh that would follow that statement, could almost hear Obi-Wan’s voice. But there was nothing but the wind in Qui-Gon’s ears as he ran, as fast as possible and faster than that, to the end of the hall that opened into the hangar bay. From there, he could call a medevac, and any on-site field medics could see if there was anything that could be done to stabilize Obi-Wan’s condition, and—</p><p>The hallway ended, and the blast doors were sealed.</p><p>The sound Qui-Gon made could only generously be called human. The duracrete bowed outwards but held as he dropped to his knees, still careful not to jostle the fragile body in his arms. </p><p>A thin wisp of confusion drifted through the training bond, and Qui-Gon stiffened. Obi-Wan was shivering slightly.</p><p>“It’ll be alright,” he murmured, tucking a protective arm under the boy’s head, only this time, he wasn’t sure it would be. “Someone must have heard that, just hold on a little longer. Stay with me, padawan.”</p><p>
  <em> Cold. </em>
</p><p>The sensation raced down Qui-Gon’s spine like icy fingers. The hand curled into his tunic began to slacken.</p><p>“No, come on, stay with me. Obi-Wan. Hold on, please, it’ll be alright, it’ll be okay, it’ll- it-“</p><p>The training bond crumbled, and that last ember guttered into nothingness.</p><p>The blast doors exploded into the hangar bay with a howl.</p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p><p>Two days later, when Jedi Masters Windu and Yoda arrived on Naboo, they found a liberated planet, a shell shocked queen, a frightened boy, and a still-smoking funeral pyre. </p><p>Qui-Gon Jinn was gone.</p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Soul</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Dooku</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Trigger warnings are updated for every chapter in the tags, after my half lucid realization that I deadass forgot to include "torture" for the first chapter. y i k e</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Yan Dooku had not set foot in his quarters in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant in months, and it showed.</p><p>A fine but noticeable layer of dust blanketed everything in sight, from the counters to the sofas to the crispy remains of a neglected houseplant. The buzz of Coruscant’s traffic was absent, hidden behind the same thick curtains that staved off the city’s ever-present light pollution, and all Dooku would have to do to produce a sudden riot of dust motes was flip on the lights.</p><p>He did no such thing.</p><p>Instead, feet on the threshold, Yan Dooku let out a breath that was just a hair heavier than he would have otherwise allowed. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the smell of mothballs, old stone rooms, and… something else, akin to cleaning supplies. </p><p>Odd.</p><p>The lights remained off, and the curtains closed, as he strode into the depths of the once-familiar room. It wouldn’t do to attract the interest of any nosy neighbors. </p><p>Unlike the front room, his bedroom showed clear signs of tampering. There was nothing overtly out of order, but… </p><p>Perhaps that was the problem, Dooku reasoned, ruthlessly crushing a whisper of unease. Everything was in perfect order. All the drawers were closed, every piece of furniture aligned within the room to an exacting measure of symmetry, and not a single lamp or wall hanging out of order. Everything was in perfect order.</p><p>So then why did it look as if the lamps had replicated their dustless silhouettes in other places along the chest-of-drawers and bedside table? And the drawers looked full to spilling, in the manner of thoughtlessly arranged contents? And the bedspread so carefully smoothed, with not a hint of the same pervasive coating of dust as the rest of the apartment? And were those sithsdamned <em> fingerprints </em> along the bottom of that oil painting frame?</p><p>Someone had searched the room, Dooku realized grimly. And then had gone to almost absurd lengths to make it seem that nothing was amiss. The odd smell grew ever so slightly stronger, and Dooku still couldn’t place it.</p><p>Reaching out with the Force revealed nothing but the evidence of his new Master’s machinations. Even now, when the air should have been rife with warnings and the lingering traces of foreign auras, all Dooku could sense was the dull grey buzz of monotony.</p><p>Dooku scoffed. The Jedi truly had begun to stagnate, if they could not even detect Sidious’s obvious influence. Dooku had sensed it. Why couldn’t Yoda? Why couldn’t any of them?</p><p>He whirled suddenly, certain now that he was not alone. A mass of shadow detached from one of the sofas. </p><p>“Master Dooku,” came a timbre that he would recognize anywhere, “I’m glad you’re back. I’ve been meaning to speak with you.”</p><p>He scowled. “Qui-Gon. What is the matter with you, it’s the middle of the night! Surely you have better things to do than lurk about my quarters like a scared padawan.”</p><p>There was a pregnant pause.</p><p>“Master Dooku,” the shadow said with Qui-Gon’s voice. “What was your assignment?”</p><p>Dooku scoffed, brushing aside the hem of his cloak with a sweeping gesture that most likely went unnoticed in the deep blackness of the room.</p><p>“I am unarmed,” he bluffed. “Do you plan on attacking me?”</p><p>There was a disembodied sigh. “I never said anything like that.” </p><p>The sound of his former apprentice flopping down onto the cushions of the sofa was painfully familiar, and Dooku had to close his eyes against the reflexive tirade of admonishment that welled up. Qui-Gon never had cared much about the fragile nature of good Dathomirian silks. </p><p>Or about the concept of acceptable visiting hours, as the room’s sudden and inexplicably frigid silence proved. Footsteps passed along the hallway with uncomfortable proximity, and both men tensed.</p><p>The steps receded. Just someone else going from places unknown to places even more unknown. Dooku itched to do the same.</p><p>Instead, he made his way to the apartment’s kitchenette by memory and began dusting grime he couldn’t see from the tea kettle.</p><p>“I sense there is something on your mind, young one,” he stated neutrally, tapping out a teaspoon of the Sapir blend that his padawan had never fully appreciated. </p><p>On the sofa, Qui-Gon shifted slightly, belied by a squeal of springs. After a short pause, he accepted the olive branch.</p><p>“I haven’t slept in days,” Qui-Gon admitted quietly. There was a weight to his words, an echo of the teenage boy who had loved to hear his own voice. </p><p>“Surely you haven’t missed me that much, padawan,” Dooku said genially, if a bit meanly. He couldn’t help it; he had intended to be off the Temple grounds by now. </p><p>The tea was just beginning to release its aromatic steam as Dooku turned, expecting a reply, only to nearly run face first into a towering shadow.</p><p><em> “Jinn! </em>” he shouted, recoiling. “Are you trying to give me a heart attack?”</p><p>On the stove, the kettle picked up a steadily rising whistle. The smell of cleaning supplies was overpowering, but underneath it was an odor that any Jedi would deny knowing. Qui-Gon said nothing.</p><p>“You smell like death,” Dooku spat.</p><p>“I feel like it,” came the soft reply. </p><p>“Then get some sleep, you fool.” Frowning to hide his unease, Dooku pulled the kettle from the stovetop. “Here, take this with you, and pour a cup for my bumbling grandpadawan-“</p><p>There was an abrupt hiss of rage, followed by the hiss of tea hitting the stove. </p><p>Light hit where Dooku had been standing not milliseconds before.</p><p><em> “Don't you dare,” </em> Qui-Gon snarled, face illuminated from below by too-bright blue. He slashed recklessly as Dooku leapt away from the lightsaber, staying one step ahead of the glowing red furrows that appeared across walls and furniture alike.</p><p>“What in Caraya’s name has gotten into you,” Dooku demanded. “I told you I was unarmed!”</p><p>“We both know that’s not true.”</p><p>A crash, and one of Dooku’s prized antique vases shattered into a million pieces on the floor. It wouldn’t be long before someone came to investigate. </p><p>“I’m more than happy to teach you a lesson in the training salles, if the rank of Jedi Master has made your head swell,” he said, deliberately playing for time and the frustration this would inevitably elicit. </p><p>What better excuse for formally leaving the Jedi Order than shame over a failed apprentice?</p><p>Sure enough, Qui-Gon roared in outrage. But instead of charging in for another fumbling swipe of the ‘saber, Dooku felt the vice of phantom fingers begin to close around his windpipe. </p><p>Reacting out of misguided impulse, he froze, losing the crucial second before his thoughts caught up with his actions to shout <em> this is not Lord Sidious! </em> </p><p>Then the Force tightened, and his vision began to bleed black at the edges, and he did the only thing he could. He lashed out with all of the evening’s frustration and hatred, and the grip vanished.</p><p>Wall hangings were fluttering to the ground to rest atop shattered glass and ceramics, what was left of the furniture had crumpled like sheets of flimsiplast, and possibly the only intact item in the room was the glass in the window.</p><p>The shredded curtains admitted just enough light to paint the side of Qui-Gon’s face in sharp lines. Above that shamefully crooked nose, the man’s eyes were as black as pits.</p><p>“I didn’t want to believe it,” he murmured, as if to himself, and Dooku bristled.</p><p>“Believe what?”</p><p>His old apprentice gave him a long look. </p><p>“I don’t know where you’ve been stationed, <em> Master Dooku, </em>” Qui-Gon said, spitting out the title as if he couldn’t stand its taste, “But perhaps the news hasn’t reached you yet. The Sith are back.”</p><p>All Dooku could do was stare.</p><p>As part of his initiation, Dooku’s new master had sent him to Malachor, on orders to connect to the ancient roots of the Dark Side. And initially, he had thought that the purpose of the exercise was to let him ruminate in his own hatred of the barren landscape, and the periodically spaced totems that whistled in the wind, seemingly without purpose beyond the bafflement of the weary traveller.</p><p>Then his foot had found the first flaw in the planet’s crust, and the ground had spiderwebbed with cracks beneath him. It had been then that Dooku had first connected to the first stone in the path to the Dark Side. All of his bruisingly potent feelings about the Jedi had seemed paltry in comparison to that first wash of all-consuming terror.</p><p>And now, facing down this violent husk of his former padawan, Dooku felt the same sensation of looking down and realizing for the first time that he had wandered onto unstable ground.</p><p>“I had not heard of this,” Dooku managed at last. “How did you come by this knowledge?”</p><p>Qui-Gon made a sound like the snap of brittle ice. </p><p>“Are you not even going to try denying it?” he demanded, a touch desperately.</p><p>Slowly, Dooku shook his head, and watched Qui-Gon’s face fall into unnatural blankness.</p><p>“A Sith assassin was present during the invasion of Naboo,” Qui-Gon said flatly. The lightsaber in his hand twirled with agitated energy at odds with his hollow gaze. And since when had Qui-Gon used a blue blade?</p><p>“Myself, Obi-Wan, and the Queen of Naboo were on the planet, attempting to wrest control from the military presence of the Trade Federation, and Obi-Wan and I were forced to engage with the Sith to prevent the slaughter of the Queen’s already sparse forces. We had already encountered the Sith on Tatooine, during an unorthodox refueling stop, but for some reason, this was different. The Sith stayed on the defensive, leading us deeper into the complex and further from any hope of reinforcement, and by the time we made it to the center of the reactor, I was beginning to tire.” </p><p>Qui-Gon let out a short burst of breath. He palmed almost absently at his left shoulder, and Dooku’s eyes darted to the door. Why hadn’t anyone come to investigate the disruption yet?</p><p>“The blast doors cut me off from Obi-Wan and the Sith, who had gone beyond the doors before they had cycled closed,” Qui-Gon continued, and Dooku’s attention snapped back to him. “When they opened again, I tried to face the Sith on my own.”</p><p>His eyes closed, and an agonized expression crossed his face.</p><p>“The Sith beat me. Easily. He had my lightsaber locked into the ground with one end of his staff, and was bearing down on my left with the other, just about to cut me cleanly in half, when Obi-Wan cut through the wall and distracted him. I would have died if it weren’t for Obi-Wan.”</p><p>“Your apprentice is very brave,” Dooku hedged. “Although he never was very good at Makashi.”</p><p>“That’s your rubric for everything, isn’t it?” Qui-Gon laughed bitterly. “Maybe that’s why you find everyone to be lacking.” </p><p>“Well, what happened?” Dooku snapped waspishly, not even deigning to respond to that. “You beat the Sith, yes? Did your foolish padawan suffer any injuries?”</p><p><em> “Don’t call him that, </em>” Qui-Gon growled, and a light fixture overhead popped with a shower of sparks. </p><p>“Well, that’s what he is,” Dooku retorted, still feeling the smart of having been off-world on the day of the boy’s aging out. If circumstances had been different with his assignment to Christophsis, he would have taken the boy as his final padawan without hesitation. But the assignment had run long, and by the time he had returned, the boy had been following at Qui-Gon’s heels like a besotted pup.  </p><p>Qui-Gon’s glare was empty. Something else had happened, and as Dooku looked from the man’s face to the blue lightsaber in his hand, he began to feel the dull pallor of realization creeping up on him.</p><p>“No,” Dooku said.</p><p>Qui-Gon’s silence spoke volumes.</p><p>“How,” he asked, furious that his new master had apparently failed to mention this to him. Although what he would have done with the knowledge once he had it, Dooku had no idea.</p><p>His former padawan merely shrugged. </p><p>“How does it ever happen in a battle of lightsabers?” The dispassionate tone of his voice made the hairs on Dooku’s neck raise. “The Sith stabbed him-” he pointed to his own sternum, “-right here. Then Obi-Wan died, and I avenged him.”</p><p>“Revenge is not the Jedi way,” Dooku objected by rote, then wanted to slap himself. </p><p>“But before I killed him, he gave me a name,” Qui-Gon continued, apparently uncaring of Dooku’s interruption. “He said that his master had another apprentice.”</p><p>Dooku’s lips thinned as he met Qui-Gon’s expectant gaze. </p><p>“What do you want me to say, Qui-Gon? That I’m this supposed forbidden apprentice?”</p><p>“I never said anything about forbidden.”</p><p>Dooku scoffed. “Everyone knows that there are only two Sith, a master and an apprentice.”</p><p>“Except when there are none,” Qui-Gon countered intently. Dooku scoffed again but offered nothing more. </p><p>“I didn’t want to believe it,” Qui-Gon said softly, “when he gave me your name.”</p><p>“Well, what changed your mind, to make you so sure that he was not lying? I hear that’s a chronic affliction for the Sith.”</p><p>Qui-Gon’s face hardened. “It would seem so. Your eyes turned the same color as his when you lashed out a moment ago.”</p><p>He began to pace like a cornered animal, slashing his — <em> Obi-Wan’s </em>— lightsaber through the empty air. </p><p>“Yellow is the color of corruption, Master Dooku, or am I mistaken?” </p><p>Red light washed the room in crimson tones.</p><p>“That’s what I thought,” Qui-Gon said sadly, and brought his saber into an Ataru guard.</p><p>Dooku grimly realized that he would have to kill his former padawan in the very room that he had raised him in. Any hope of a clean escape had gone up in smoke the moment Qui-Gon had realized what he was. It was essential that the Jedi Order not have any reason to doubt his integrity until his new master’s plan was set into motion. If the price of that ignorance was the life of the boy he had seen as a son, then—</p><p>Qui-Gon slowly shifted into the opening stance of Soresu.</p><p>“Branching out, Jinn?” Dooku asked warily.</p><p>“Just a hunch,” the man replied. </p><p>Far below them both, far enough that it may as well have been miles away, Coruscant street life bustled on. Untold millions of sentients were living in this same moment, without any knowledge of the precarious balance in this room, and it would stay that way, Dooku vowed. Too much depended on the outcome of this duel for him to fall.</p><p>In the end, it happened too quickly to see who moved first.</p><p>All Dooku knew, for the single, shining moment wherein they both stood on opposite sides of the room than before, backs turned to each other, was that his lightsaber had not connected. </p><p>Then pain bloomed white-hot across his side, and his legs collapsed from beneath him. He hit the ground with only a puff of exhalation, and his lightsaber rolled off of nerveless fingers.</p><p><em> How could this happen? </em> Dooku wondered, as a pair of familiar mud-stained boots entered his field of vision. This time, the old wave of annoyance broke through, and carried with it the small seeds of fondness that Dooku had spent his whole life trying to eradicate, to no avail. The sensation was almost as uncomfortable as the mouthful of blood he spat onto the cold floor.</p><p>A mangled sofa cushion haltingly traversed the ruined landscape of the apartment, coming to a stop just in time for Qui-Gon to fall atop it gracelessly. Dooku rolled onto his back and glared hatefully up at his old padawan.</p><p>“How could you do this to me,” Dooku coughed accusingly.</p><p>Qui-Gon’s eyes flashed. “How could <em> I </em> do this to <em> you? </em> How could you turn to the Dark Side?”</p><p>“The Jedi have stagnated, and need to be shown that there is a better way than their precious tradition dictates-“</p><p>“So your solution was to join with the very embodiment of evil?” Qui-Gon exploded.</p><p>Dooku leveled him with his most ferocious scowl. </p><p>“I’m not going to talk to you if you aren’t going to listen,” he rasped, to the sudden and hysterical laughter of his former padawan. “What the stars is wrong with you now?”</p><p>Qui-Gon wheezed heavily. The hair that Dooku had been subtly prompting him to cut for years now hung defiantly in front of his feverish eyes. Dooku noted the streaks of silver with a distant pang. When had the boy gotten so old?</p><p>“It’s just like it used to be,” Qui-Gon said shakily. “You’ll be making fun of my hair or taste in friends and moment now.” </p><p>Dooku fought a spasm in his lungs and pointedly did not say a word. </p><p>Qui-Gon sighed, seemingly letting the burst of mania escape with the air, and looked away.</p><p>“I wish things could have been different,” he said softly. Dooku closed his eyes.</p><p>“We always do,” he offered. It felt even more hollow out loud than it had in his head.</p><p>“I wish…” Qui-Gon buried his face in his hands, muffling his next words. “I wish Obi-Wan were still alive.”</p><p>Dooku sighed and opened his eyes to stare up at the increasingly distant ceiling. The light from the city threw odd shapes to roam across the smooth pourstone. Even with his former padawan sitting next to him, Dooku could not help but feel the chilled shadow of loneliness curl into the place in his soul where there had previously only been hatred.</p><p>There came a sound suspiciously like a sniffle from beside him, and he turned his head to look. </p><p>“I wish you weren’t a Sith,” Qui-Gon said then, and some sullen, butter part of Dooku agreed.</p><p>“It is what it is,” he said instead. </p><p>“And now you’re going to die.”</p><p>If the lack of feeling in his legs and arms was any indication, yes. At least he couldn’t feel the burn where the lightsaber had dissected his stomach anymore.</p><p>He sighed, a mirror of Qui-Gon’s earlier. </p><p>“Yes, my boy. I’m afraid so.”</p><p>Qui-Gon’s response was unintelligible, and Dooku put no effort towards deciphering it. The world was already going pleasantly shady at the edges.  </p><p>“Who’s Hego?” Qui-Gon’s voice echoed distantly. </p><p>“Hmm?”</p><p>“The other name the assassin gave me was Hego, but he died before I could ask for clarification.”</p><p>Dooku blinked. “Kill not unless in defense of innocents,” he recited mindlessly. Qui-Gon snorted and shook his head. </p><p>“Do you know who Hugo is, Yan?” It was odd hearing his first name from the man who was, for all intents and purposes, his son. And now his murderer, but that was neither here nor there.</p><p>“Hego,” Dooku hummed. He recognized the name. “Hego Damask, I should think. Listen, Qui-Gon.”</p><p>Qui-Gon visibly bit back whatever he had been about to say. Dooku thanked the little gods for small miracles.</p><p>“Since I am going to die, I need you to finish what I started.”</p><p>“I will <em> not </em> join the Sith-“</p><p>“Hush, you impertinent boy!” Dooku broke out in wracking coughs, and was unable to speak for what felt like a lifetime. “I do not care about the Sith. Just force that old troll to see reason. Use my death if you have to, to convince him that the old ways are not suited to be the current ways. Make him and the rest of his gaggle of fools see the truth of their imminent eradication.” His eyes slipped closed. “Just do what you can. You’ve always been annoyingly tenacious.”</p><p>There was a heavy silence. Then,</p><p>“I don’t think I can,” Qui-Gon said, sounding conflicted.</p><p>“Whyever not?”</p><p>“I… just don’t. Don’t ask that of me. Please.”</p><p>Dooku harrumphed. “Well, who else do you expect me to ask?”</p><p>“...I’m sorry.”</p><p>He sighed. “Just leave, if you can’t face the consequences of your own actions.”</p><p>There was a moment of painful hesitation, but even that came to an end. Dooku waited until he heard the plod of retreating footsteps and the swish of the automatic door closing before acknowledging, for the first and last time, the bitter coil of loneliness wrapped around his heart.</p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p><p>That was how they found him in the morning: cut down alone, with only a red lightsaber near his hand and eyes a damning shade of empty gold.</p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>A few things:</p><p>1) I'm beginning to think the only way I can write at all is within unpredictable, hour-long windows of time, and once they pass I am reduced to a vaguely humanoid smear on my couch. wtf</p><p>2) I've always really liked Dooku, certainly more than I liked Qui-Gon before going on my Liam Neeson watching spree and being attacked by the plot bunnies. There's this one passage in some Star Wars book somewhere (tell me if you know it) where Dooku is just. Ripping into the Jedi for everything, and he's actually not wrong about much of it. Sorry that's kinda unclear my memory is shitty lmao.</p><p>3) I like to imagine people as living in small houses above the ocean, supported by tall pillars to keep them safe from the waves. The more pillars they have, and the stronger the pillars are, the more stable they're going to be. Qui-Gon just had one of his pillars violently ripped out from under him, and was then forced to come to terms with the fact that another of them was hopelessly rotted through on the inside. This chapter is him removing that rotted pillar, hopefully to be replaced with a better one in the future, but perhaps not I'll leave that up to your imagination :)</p><p>4)Thank you so much to everyone who left comments and Kudos on the first chapter! This one's dedicated to you guys</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Mind</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Hego Damask</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>(imagine only realizing that autocorrect messed with the character names after publishing,,, if you know what I mean, don't worry, I'm going to fix it. if you don't know what I mean,,,,,,,,,,, good)</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>“Hello,” said Qui-Gon Jinn. A clump of unwashed hair fell into his eyes. He brushed it aside roughly, belying his impatience. “Do you know why I’m here?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Beyond the crude metal bars of the middle-class asylum, just reputable enough to avoid the title, the old Muun drooled and stared vacantly at the wall over Qui-Gon’s shoulder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘I imagine you’re here to kill me</span>
  </em>
  <span>,’ came the dark response, from somewhere within Qui-Gon’s mind. He fought a snarl when foreign laughter rattled through his head in the same voice he had previously assigned to his own thoughts. Shifting to hide his unease, Qui-Gon lay a foreboding hand on Obi-Wan’s old lightsaber. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Hego Damask,” he began, compulsion and irritation lending his words a gravitas that had served him well in the past months. “For conspiring against the Queen of Naboo and training the Sith assassin responsible for the death of the Republic’s Jedi representative, I hereby sentence you to death, effective immediately.” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a brief moment of silence, psychic and otherwise. A bead of saliva dripped down the Muun’s starchy MedCenter clothing with agonizing slowness. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘While I can’t say I’m surprised by your conclusion</span>
  </em>
  <span>,’ echoed the disembodied voice of the master Sith, ‘</span>
  <em>
    <span>perhaps we should talk about the charges</span>
  </em>
  <span>.’ </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then Qui-Gon blinked, and he was somewhere else. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The omnipresent, sterile white of the walls and ceiling of the asylum was replaced with an all-too-familiar courtyard, crowned with a gnarled tree that bowed beneath the weight of its blossoms. The late afternoon sun lay heavily across sand-colored stone, washing color and contrast from the few hooded figures who drifted in and out of the light heat. A breeze shook the boughs of the tree, but Qui-Gon could not feel it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At the base of the tree, between the shady roots and knots of the ancient wood, sat a man. He was perhaps not the youngest, and certainly not the most handsome, but he had a sort of aureole surrounding him, which spoke of warmth and peace. He scrolled idly through the contents of a datapad, then seemed to tire of it, and set it on the gravel by his side. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The man closed his eyes, breathed deeply, sniffled once around the lump in the bridge of his nose, and seemed to settle deeper into his own skin. A meditative trance. It was familiar, and somehow, looked entirely alien to Qui-Gon, the unseen observer. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then, a synthleather boot, much smaller than the ones sprawled haphazardly to the side of the courtyard, descended slowly from the obscuring canopy of flowers that adorned the tree. Qui-Gon watched, struck silent, as it came to hover just above the crown of the man’s head. When it finally fell, there was a sudden, undignified roar, and the peals of a child’s bright laughter. The man twisted to face upward, a thunderous frown on his face, and the tree shook until just the bare toes that belonged to the errant boot were visible. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You should be more mindful of your surroundings, Master,” called a voice that, for all its  youth, crushed the breath from Qui-Gon’s lungs with the ache of familiarity. “Live in the moment!” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Padawan,” the man growled, and Qui-Gon could not help but stare. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He hardly recognized the face before him as his own. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He watched, detached, as the man lectured up into the top of the tree, received a cheeky remark and the swing of a small foot, and made to stand in a most threatening manner. Abruptly, the foot vanished from sight, and the tree shook with much more vigor as the boy within its branches scrambled for higher ground. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon nearly ached with the need to stand beneath the tree and look into the face of his padawan in something other than death. Did that stupid old man, who squinted so irately into the leaves, have any idea what he was taking for granted? </span>
  <em>
    <span>Who </span>
  </em>
  <span>he was taking for granted? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The chatter of the two near the tree faded out slowly. The scene before him began to grey, until only the faintest awareness of laughter and warm sunlight lingered in his senses. Try as he might, Qui-Gon could not lift his feet to step forward. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What a lovely memory.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Standing next to him in the phantom courtyard, the old Muun looked practically regal, in a twisted, Sithly way. The bleak emptiness that replaced the vision seemed to seep into every fold in his face. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Glaring, Qui-Gon tried in vain to move, whether to retreat or land a killing blow, he did not know. But the last of the vision, or memory, or whatever it was, dissolved into smoky trails before his very eyes, and the Muun simply stared silently into the vast black distance that remained.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What the hells was that,” Qui-Gon growled, and Damask finally fixed him with a startlingly aware - and very displeased - look. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Young people like you have such short attention spans,” he sighed. “I had to be sure that you wouldn’t immediately reject the contact.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I will,” Qui-Gon threatened.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damask raised both eyebrows and waved a hand in a </span>
  <em>
    <span>go ahead</span>
  </em>
  <span> motion. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Long seconds passed, and nothing happened, aside from the notable increase of Qui-Gon’s frustration. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You cannot,” the Muun deduced flatly, and returned his stare to the middle distance. “Because you do not truly want to. I know how that is, child.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon immediately bristled. “Do not call me that.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A disinterested look. Then, “Why not?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I killed the last person who ever did,” he said, straightening against the immediate downpour of anger and sickly shame against his shoulders. “Dooku was your apprentice, wasn’t he?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damask looked up sharply. “Was? You bested him in combat?” His eyes narrowed consideringly, tilting his head and folding his bony hands before him. It was amazing, how one could look so ugly even in a place that defied reality.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You ambushed him,” Damask quickly surmised, lips twisting into a thin sneer. “That will not work so well when the time comes.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“When what time comes?” Qui-Gon demanded. “You are helpless, blind, and I can have your shriveled head on the floor the moment I leave this place.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Then leave,” the Sith hissed, “and take that mistake with you to our precious Jedi afterlife. I did not, as you think, teach Dooku.” The flare of anger, gone as quickly as it had appeared, set Qui-Gon's teeth on edge in a way it never would have in the past. Before Theed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My name was Darth Plagueis,” the old Muun said, with something like humor. “My apprentice - whom you may not recognize, but will certainly know - used to call me wise. He was a young fool, and preyed on my ego, thinking that I did not recognize his manipulations, but I think the one he has always been the best at fooling is himself. I always believed that somewhere, he held some amount of respect for me. It was he who trained Dooku, and Maul before him.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Maul,” Qui-Gon echoed hollowly. “I do not care what the assassin called himself any more than I care about your failings as a master. If there is another Sith, I will kill you, and then him. Then-” he broke off, suddenly unsure how to finish that thought, and realizing only in the face of Damask’s polite silence that he had not even once considered it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You will need all the help you can get, if you are to face my apprentice,” the Muun said, cutting into Qui-Gon’s sudden silence out of what seemed disturbingly like pity. “I will help you how I can, Master Jedi.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Ice prickled Qui-Gon’s bones. “The assassin - Maul - said the same thing.” If he had been able, he would have paced a loose circle around the papery old Sith. His fingers twitched for want of a lightsaber in his hands. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damask said nothing, and only continued to stare down his nose at  Qui-Gon.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Fury welled up in him then, pure red and refreshing as the tide. He flung out a hand to where the ghosts of the past had sheltered, now as vanished as the shelter itself. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You Sith are all the same,” Qui-Gon hissed. “You hide behind your illusions and lies, and the moment you’re cornered, you begin bartering for your lives like weasels, selling each other out and only worrying about yourselves!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Do you suggest devoting oneself to a life in service to others,” Damask sniffed, “even though your inability to let go of your own apprentice has brought you so low?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obi-Wan would want me to bring balance to the force,” Qui-Gon snapped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damask fixed him with a poisonous look.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“That is not why you are doing this, Master Jedi, and we both know it.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>“You don’t know a thing about me!” </span>
  </em>
  <span>The shout had scarcely begun to reverberate in the undefined darkness before Qui-Gon’s hand closed around a familiar shape. The lightsaber snapped to life in his palm, but Damask was gone when he raised the blade to strike. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The darkness began to flake at its edges, holes eating at the space like fire at the corners of burning flimsiplast. As before, it was only the space of a blink that took him from blackness to MedCenter white.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damask was once again an unresponsive shape slumped against the restraints on his wheelchair. Qui-Gon sneered at him through the bars, and traced hot plasma through metal until he could step forward and stare into glassy eyes. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I don’t care what you think,” he said lowly. “All you need to worry about is the moment I remove you from this galaxy like the <em>stain you are</em>. I will make it quick, but I cannot promise that it will be painless.” Qui-Gon very firmly refused the urge to add, <em>and</em></span>
  <em>
    <span> it’s nothing less than you deserve.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was a contemplative pause. The body in the chair, as much as it could be called that, slumped fractionally to the side.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>'When you began your search for me, to begin this cleansing of yours, did you wonder how I came to be here?’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon slammed a hand against the arm of the chair with enough force to shake the old pile of bones that occupied it. He opened his mouth to say something to the effect of </span>
  <em>
    <span>No, and I do not care,</span>
  </em>
  <span> but the Muun spoke over him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Sidious put me here, after he failed to take my life on the eve of your apprentice’s death.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Whatever reaction Damask had been seeking from this statement, Qui-Gon refused to give it to him. He stepped back, silently, lightsaber active and heating the air around the blade into shivering waves.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘I had been perfecting an ancient Sith technique, one which my own master had handed down to me.’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>Damask paused. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Before I killed him, of course. The technique was lacking, but in my hubris, I thought I had found the answer. I was only partly correct.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You’re still alive,” Qui-Gon muttered, intent on fixing that problem. Only barely-there curiosity stayed his hand.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘This is not life,’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>the Munn scoffed. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘For as long as this husk of a body persists, I am the ghost that will haunt it. I have preserved the mind, while the matter rots away.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon stiffened. “So even if I strike you down now, you will not be gone.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Yes. But-’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>he said swiftly, as Qui-Gon wound up to do exactly that, damn the consequences, </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘I can, and will, choose to let myself go, in exchange for letting me help you.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he replied immediately. “I have nothing to learn from you.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘You seem to think you have a choice, child. You are mistaken, and if you could feel the Force, it would tell you the same thing I can plainly see: you are not prepared to face my apprentice in this state.’</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It stung, but Qui-Gon knew it to be the truth even without the bright pull of the Force. He had to. Since leaving Dooku to die in the Temple, his own connection to the Living Force had faltered and died, leaving yet another gaping hole in his mind, beside the ones formerly occupied by Obi-Wan and Dooku. It was just another thing he had lost to the treachery of the Sith.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>At this rate, he realized with a twinge of regret, there would not be much of him left. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Let me help you reconnect to the Force,’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>Damask coaxed. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Allow yourself at least a fighting chance against Darth Sidious, for he is as powerful as all you have faced combined. Only then will I make my peace with death.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon grit his teeth, but did not object further. It felt like a betrayal of everything he stood for, and of himself, but had been prepared to make some sacrifices to see this to the end. He would wipe out the Sith or die trying, and if that meant tolerating the presence of the old Muun for moments longer, he would.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Fine.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Very good,’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>said Damask, as smooth and pleased as the stench of carrion, and then there was another presence skirting the edges of his mind. He grit his teeth to keep from drawing away like a frightened animal.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘You are distraught about the loss of your… padawan,’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>Damask observed, testing out the word with no small measure of amusement and intrigue. That he found the word quaint was implicit in his tone. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘You are feeling the effects of having a very deep training bond severed by death. I sense this is not a singular occurrence, either.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Qui-Gon said stiffly, disliking the reminder of Xanatos after so many years. “It has happened once before.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘I can see that. It is unhealthy to mend broken bonds by covering them with new ones, Master Jedi.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon’s temper flared. “How do I fix it?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘You cannot fix it. You must let it go, and prevent it from festering any longer than it must. If all you can feel is the decay of the bond, you will be blinded to the life Force you treasure so foolishly.’</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A horrible feeling sank into Qui-Gon’s stomach. “What do you mean, ‘let it go,’” he rasped.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Let go of your attachment to your dead apprentice, and accept his death.’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Recoiling both mentally and physically, Qui-Gon only just stopped himself from killing Damask then and there. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought Sith were supposed to be the opposite of the Jedi,” he said accusingly. “The Temple records say that attachments are the path to the Dark side! They’re practically a prerequisite!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Damask had the nerve to sound weary. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘Falling can be caused by excessive emotional attachment. But the very nature of the Dark is solitude, and what connections we do not consume for our own ends tend to be very short lived, and tragic in nature.’</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“My deepest sympathies,” Qui-Gon snarled, unsympathetically.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Do you wish to reconnect with the Force, or not?’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>The old Muun finally sounded annoyed, and Qui-Gon finally allowed himself the vindictive pleasure of tipping the chair to its side on the floor, with Damask still strapped to it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he said firmly, staring down at the pathetic figure the old Sith struck. “If that is the cost, then I will have to face your precious apprentice without the Force to guide my hand.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Then you will die. I will not entrust my revenge to the hands of a fool!”</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>This time, Damask pushed aside Qui-Gon’s shields like lumps of wet clay, and Qui-Gon nearly fell to the ground with the sheer shock of the intrusion. He caught himself against the mangled remains of the bars just as Damask’s sickly presence reached the gaping maw of nothingness where the training bond had been.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Then something began to shred itself from the very foundation of Qui-Gon’s mind, and Qui-Gon </span>
  <em>
    <span>screamed. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>‘Your bond will remain until you choose to remove it,’ </span>
  </em>
  <span>Damask said grimly, voice echoing like light in a hall of transparisteel. </span>
  <em>
    <span>‘But I can make some room. With luck, you will survive until this begins to unravel…’ </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>A blood vessel burst in Qui-Gon’s eye, and there was something sticky trickling out of his ear, but that was all he had time to register before a darkness of his own creation bore him under, and there was nothing left but pain.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The next time Qui-Gon opened his eyes, he could feel the thrum of the Living Force all the way down to his bones. After the silent rejection of the past days, it was a balm on his mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The feeling didn’t last long.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Every time he tried to grasp the Force, it slid from his touch like oil off of water, somehow undefinably corrupted. It left a stale taste in the back of his mouth when he finally realized that the once-clear currents of the Force ran darker through him. He was like a corpse washed onto the banks of a stream. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Slowly poisoning the water around him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It was of no consequence. With a grunt, Qui-Gon pushed himself up from where he had sunk to his knees beneath the initial onslaught. Some part of him knew that this was only ever meant to be temporary. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Across the fall of warped metal on the scuffed floor, the now truly sightless eyes of Hego Damask seemed to agree with him. The old Muun was still a husk, but an empty one at last. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon drew himself up and spat at the Sith’s feet. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He whisked away in a flurry of brown robes, but every step he took only widened the pit growing in his stomach. The Force easily filled that space, churning nauseously, telling him what he needed to do, where he needed to go, until it was all he could think of. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was still blood in his ear, and the vision in his left eye was off, and cold certainty pushed at his heels. His path felt haunted.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But beneath the slick veneer of purpose, some part of him curled up, hurting, and wondered quietly, </span>
  <em>
    <span>if I have learned so well from Sith, what does that make me?</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Not happy with how this chapter turned out, but my vacation is about to end and I want to post this while I still have the brainpower to do so :( I tried to leave a lot unsaid, but idk if it came off as deep or just lazy</p>
<p>We're getting closer to the end, and to the scene I had in mind after I came up with the first chapter, but first... creamy Sheev gets his time in the spotlight... </p>
<p>Stay tuned!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. The rage that drives us</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Palpatine</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Happy spooky month!</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The first time it almost happened, nothing did. </p><p>Assassination attempts were no rare occurrence for one of Palpatine’s standing; it would be more suspicious if the Chancellor of the Galactic Republic had no enemies at all. The only difference was, Sidious had not planned this attempt.</p><p>It was a lovely day on Naboo, with wisps of clouds sitting high in the crisp air, and Palpatine had decided to pay a visit to the Queen, just in case his informant in the palace was beginning to worry about the lining of his pockets. Crowds had gathered on the streets to wave and cheer as he passed along the palace boulevard.</p><p>Feeling particularly benign that morning, Palpatine had been about to order his guards to lower the top of his hovercar and slow down, when the Force did something it had not done in quite some time. It whispered a warning.</p><p>He spent the rest of the ride complaining about his stomach. His entourage reached the palace in record time.</p><p>For the duration of the stay, Sidious was unable to relax, constantly checking his mental shields and glancing at moving shadows from the corners of his eyes. He had quite forgotten what it was to be under genuine threat of physical violence, and found he liked it even less than he remembered.</p><p>By the time the requisite three days had passed, Palpatine had not slept a wink in the cushy royal wing of the Theed palace, and was certain it showed. A judicious application of the Force had the staff falling over themselves to tend to his “illness”, and not a single holo of him smiling with the Queen was recorded. He boarded the shuttle with professionally concealed relief, and a healthy dose of grim determination. Sidious swore that this invisible threat would be either bought or executed within the week.</p><p>Of course, that was when Anakin disappeared.</p><p>Two weeks after a wild-eyed creche master confronted him on the landing pad, demanding to know if the boy had left behind any hint of his whereabouts, Palpatine stowed away on a cargo freighter with a hunch and a strong desire to be proven wrong. He landed in Mos Espa that night, and nearly broke the neck of the hangar attendant in front of the little gods and everybody.</p><p>“Mr. Palpatine?” asked Anakin Skywalker, squinting to see under Sidious’s hood. The boy took one look at his face and immediately began to apologize. </p><p>“-really sorry,” he said, stumbling over his words. Sidious’s lip curled. “I thought you were-”</p><p>“Where is your master, boy,” Sidious rasped.</p><p>Young Skywalker flinched most gratifyingly before drawing himself up. A fold in the ragged fabric of his pants released sand as he shifted. </p><p>“I’m a freedman,” the boy said defiantly, holding a socket wrench as if expecting the title to need immediate defense. Sidious swept away without a word. </p><p>Beneath his hood, he was smiling.</p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p><p>There was a knock at Palpatine’s door.</p><p>“Come in,” he called, and kept his eyes on the committee request he was authenticating as light footsteps sounded on the carpet. He counted to ten, then signed with a flourish and looked up with a smile.</p><p>“How can I-- Anakin! My dear boy, whatever happened?”  </p><p>There stood the Chosen One, washed, cleaned, and obviously fresh from a medical center. There was not a spot of dust on him, but there was a cavernous look in his eyes. </p><p>“My mother,” he started, and then burst into tears without further preamble. Palpatine was there in an instant to sweep the boy into a hug, murmuring grandfatherly reassurances and gently rocking the boy back and forth. Quietly, Sidious reached out to prod at the sparks of grief that leapt off the boy. </p><p>Such emotion for the plain, nondescript Shimi Skywalker. Perhaps Anakin had stumbled across the remains himself.</p><p>“There, there,” Palpatine murmured. Anakin began to sob harder. “Let’s talk about this over a mug of something warm. Have you ever tried Sapir?”</p><p>As Sidious steered the distraught child towards the decorative sofas at the side of the room, he thought he felt it again. Just for the briefest second, the feeling of being watched with malice. Instinctively tightening his shields against the lurking presence from one side and the onslaught of Skywalker’s wonderfully bitter thoughts, Sidious very carefully did not look out the window.</p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p><p>That evening, Palpatine pushed himself away from his desk with a sigh, and dismissed his receptionist with a kind smile. He dropped a box of chocolates into her hands and told her to hurry home to whoever was waiting for her. The guards, too, he shooed off with the promise of another late night stay.</p><p>“If I’m not safe here,” he said, “I’m not safe anywhere! Go home.” This last, he laced with a healthy dose of suggestion, and watched as both of the imposing red figures marched away with surety born of having no free thought. </p><p>The feeling of being followed had not abated since Anakin had left. Indeed, it had only strengthened, until the hairs on the back of Palpatine’s neck had begun to stand straight up. During his meeting with the Hossnian ambassador, he had almost expected to turn and see some angry assassin scaling the outside of the building. </p><p>With a scowl already forming on his face, Sidious returned to his seat to wait. Would he have to buy out this assassin, or was it personal? How personal could it possibly be; Palpatine had never so much as jaywalked on public record. Sidious was another story, but if this new problem had beef with Sidious… </p><p>Silently, and with steadily growing resolve, Sidious ran through his contingencies and felt for the reassuring weight of his lightsaber, concealed in his poofy sleeves. Palpatine nodded decisively. No matter the outcome of the evening, he would be prepared. </p><p>Still, it came as some surprise, when, some half an hour later, he opened the door only to come face to face with one Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn. For a moment all he could do was stare as the towering man glanced around the room, hands secured in sleeves, eyes flinty.</p><p>Finally, one of Jinn’s hands appeared, pointing to the far side of the room. “I am going to smear you across <em>that</em> wall,” Jinn said with a bland, by-the-way manner. He leveled Palpatine with a bland smile. </p><p>After a moment, Sidious returned it. The red lightsaber fell into his palm.</p><p>“You’re rather tardy, Master Jinn,” Palpatine admonished. “I had expected you to visit months ago!”</p><p>Jinn’s smile took on a manic, violent edge. The grinding of teeth was almost, but not quite, audible. No chit-chat, then.</p><p>With surprising speed for a being of such unwieldy size, Jinn ignited his lightsaber and in one abrupt motion, leveled the lovely bronzium statue. Sidious leapt away, taking note of the white knuckled grip Jinn had on his lightsaber. </p><p><em>Or?</em> </p><p>As the Jedi thrashed around like a fish on land, wreaking unholy havoc on everything from the desk to the floors and ceiling, Palpatine tried to recall the last publicity holo he had seen of Jinn. Yes, there was definitely something different. Perhaps the man had grown another inch or so?</p><p>There was a hiss of angry red sparks as a light fixture exploded. Jinn made a very unflattering sound, which, in Palpatine’s estimation, would have only been selectively useful to a diplomat of Jinn’s repute, and -- ah. Now it was coming back to him.</p><p>“Well, my boy, what have you been up to?” Palpatine leapt easily over Jinn’s wide swing, blue plasma not even singing the hems of his embroidered robes. Sidious considered switching off his lightsaber, if only to further goad the lumbering fool.</p><p>“I’ve been meeting up with your friends,” Jinn puffed, abandoning the offensive and leaping back across the room. His eyes leapt restlessly over the destruction he had caused. “Have you gotten any greeting cards lately?”</p><p>Sidious frowned. “I imagine you’re referring to my apprentice, who you--” He stopped, suddenly, as a thought occurred to him. “--you met on Naboo. Qui-Gon Jinn, did you torture my apprentice into giving you my name?”</p><p>“I talked to your apprentice,” Jinn said levelly, “and he gave me Dooku’s name. Then I talked with Dooku, who gave me Hego Damask’s name. Then I talked with Hego Damask--” the Jedi paused, wearing the same hedonistic expression Dooku got whenever someone let him monologue, “and he told me to talk to you next.”</p><p>Jinn leveled his lightsaber at Sidious’s face, and Sidious nearly bounded across the room to swat it down on principle. He didn’t, because he had enough practice to know when he was being baited, and <em> poorly </em>, so he settled for deactivating his lightsaber. Clasping his hands behind his back, Sidious donned the face of the concerned old man who mediated senate affairs and kissed babies and hosted diplomatic galas. Across the room, Jinn pressed his lips together and adopted a Jedi’s dueling stance. Perhaps to slice Palpatine’s words out of the air? That did seem to be the preferred diplomatic action of the Order, these days.</p><p>“So,” Palpatine said softly. “You have located, and killed, both of my apprentices.”</p><p>“And your old master,” Jinn rumbled.</p><p>“And my old master, yes.” Sidious observed the oil on the hems of the Jedi’s ratty brown robe. As he let the silence stretch, Jinn’s glare became progressively more glacial above the bruises beneath his eyes. The man probably hadn’t slept in weeks. </p><p>Palpatine smiled warmly. “Thank you, by the way. I just didn’t have the nerve to do it myself. Old Hego was something of a father to me.”</p><p>Jinn’s eyes narrowed. Clearly, he hadn’t enjoyed that bit about nerve. “You abandoned him to a prison for the elderly.” </p><p>“A nursing home,” Palpatine corrected with false alarm, “It specializes in keeping them safe from society, and society safe from them. He had gotten to the age where, well, it was probably best not to let someone with his abilities get a degenerative disease without supervision. You’ve probably even done the people of Coruscant a favor in killing him!”</p><p>“I did the people of Coruscant a favor by killing him, yes,” Jinn said icily. “Because he was a Sith. When I kill you, the galaxy will be returned to the way it should have always been.”</p><p>Sidious raised an eyebrow. "Without its most prominent political figure?" </p><p>"Without darkness," Jinn spat.</p><p>"Light creates its own darkness," Sidious retorted. "Besides, from what I've been hearing recently, that's the reason you were so desperate to get Anakin-"</p><p>Across the room, a very fine imported tapestry crumbled, seemingly on its own. </p><p><em> Aha, </em> Sidious thought, <em>there's a nerve</em>. </p><p>"Tell me," he said with an air of idle curiosity, "is it true you traded your own apprentice into slavery?"</p><p>Jinn reeled backwards, stricken, shock leaking from behind carefully constructed mental shields. </p><p>"Where did you hear that?" he gasped. </p><p>"Just hearsay. The Jedi seem to be quite at their wits end, from what I hear."</p><p>Jinn stilled suddenly. "And where did you hear this, exactly?" </p><p>"Well, I've been doing some talking of my own, you see," Sidious said, only barely managing to keep his smile from sharpening. "Young Anakin-"</p><p>With a roar, Jinn launched himself at Sidious--</p><p>--And hit the floor with a nasty crack.</p><p>Sidious was both impressed and deeply annoyed when his hold on Jinn lasted no longer than a split second. Faster than he could shed his blade and reach for lightning, the Jedi was up and halfway across the room again.   </p><p>With a screech of tortured metal and a puff of dust, the ceiling collapsed, burying both of them and temporarily blinding Sidious. He hissed, throwing out an arm wildly and banishing the particles from the air with a sweeping gesture. Even when the dust cleared, he could not spot his opponent. </p><p>Eyes narrowed, Sidious pulled a screen of dust around himself and deactivated his lightsaber, in the same instant snuffing the lights that flickered faintly along the far walls. Darkness, or as close as one ever got to it on Coruscant, fell.</p><p>The dust swirled gently in the wake of Jinn’s passage. He had apparently caught on to Sidious’s intention, and had shut off his own lightsaber when the lights had died. Only the faintest of footfalls betrayed the Jedi’s careful path on the perimeter of the room. That, and the anger that radiated off him like a flare.</p><p>Sidious slowly raised a hand, tilted his head to the side, and waited for just the right moment… </p><p>The transparisteel window shattered as he sent the remains of his office desk flying at Jinn, who ducked and then had to drive his lightsaber into the floor as the room depressurized. Sidious could only imagine the great plume of white dust that must have erupted from the side of the Senate Dome in that moment. </p><p>Deadly sharp fractals of transparisteel glittered like mirrors as they were blown out into the night and onto the air traffic lanes far below. Over the empty whistle of the wind, the sound of the two of them glaring at each other reverberated like a curse.</p><p>Sidious’s eyes fell to the lightsaber, and his frown turned thoughtful once again.</p><p>“Why are you doing this, Master Jedi?” he asked. </p><p>Jinn’s face may as well have been carved from ice. </p><p>“I've already told you,” he replied lowly. “Your existence in this galaxy is a blight, your proximity to the Temple is an insult, and any Jedi of the Order would agree that this is the only way to ensure peace.”</p><p>“Then I am surprised that you have not asked for help from your fellows in your quest,” Sidious said archly. “No, Master Jinn. There is something more.”</p><p>“You killed my padawan,” he finally snapped, and the oddest sort of discord underlaid the words.</p><p>“I don’t care about your <em> padawan </em>,” Sidious sneered. “And I’m beginning to think you don’t either.”</p><p>If there had been anything left of the window, it would have been crushed instantly. As it was, a spiderweb of cracks began to form in the floor, with Jinn as the epicenter.</p><p>“No one made you set out on a quest for vengeance, Master Jedi,” he continued, unperturbed. “Not a single soul encouraged you to kill -- presumably after torturing -- three separate sentients. But perhaps you are in the right here.” </p><p>Very deliberately, Sidious glanced at the lightsaber by Jinn’s side.    </p><p>“I’m sure your apprentice would be very proud of all you’ve accomplished.”</p><p>In the second most surprising turn of events of the evening, it was Sidious who was suddenly sent flying across the room. He landed in an, admittedly, inelegant heap, and only just managed to snap up a guard in time to catch a lightsaber blow aimed at his head. </p><p>That seemed to have been the last straw. With a downright murderous glare, Jinn bore down with all of his weight, and Sidious had to brace the hilt of his own lightsaber with both hands. </p><p>Sidious expected some drivel about how a Sith was unfit to speak of a deceased Jedi apprentice, or how this entire mad quest of Jinn’s was all <em> to prevent more needless deaths, </em>but it seemed that the time for talking had passed. Sidious took stock of his options.</p><p>Office -- destroyed. There were unmistakable lightsaber burns across every square inch of the place, and while the untrained eye could attribute them all to the same blade, the Jedi would surely know the difference, once they inevitably joined the investigation. </p><p>If Palpatine fled now, leaving a dead Jedi and no explanation, questions would be raised. His plans would not come to fruition within this or any lifetime.  </p><p>On the other hand, if he were to be lost to an alleged terrorist’s attack… both Jinn and the evidence of a fight would be lost along with him. He had a contingency to install a puppet ruler in his stead, if need be, but Jinn? The fool seemed to have come armed with his blade and no wits.</p><p>A smile stretched across Sidious’s face as he met the Jedi’s incensed gaze, below the sparking disharmony of the two lightsabers’ intersection. The time table would have to be moved up, but perhaps a jumpstart was just the thing his plans needed right now. Assuming, of course, that the Kaminoans were as good as their word.</p><p>Sidious relished the look of shock on Jinn’s face as he switched off his lightsaber, and in the same instant, activated the failsafe hidden beneath the office floorboards.</p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p><p>The explosion was not a big one, but it would never be forgotten. </p><p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>It low-key bothered me that Palpatine, out of all of the villains in this little story, is the one who is going to survive, but this son of a bitch just would. not. die. I tried so hard to kill him, but I genuinely could not think up a scenario that he was not in some way prepared for </p><p>Sorry for the extended wait on this chapter, and thank you to everyone who left kudos and comments! If you have any thoughts, questions, concerns, hmu on tumblr @hellomynameisalias, or just go scream into the void (everyone has time for that, recently) and your complaint will be filed within 5-10 business days :)</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. That which they defend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>Qui-Gon Jinn</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>"I do not love the sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." -Faramir, The Two Towers</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Coruscant was a diamond in space. It glittered like the stars had been trapped in its concentric cities, and its light was just as cold. Some said the city had a heart, and that it was made of polished chromium and bristling with wires like exposed arteries. Denizens of the lower levels swore by the mythical rivers of trash beneath the feet of prostitutes and presidents alike.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But to Qui-Gon Jinn, the Jedi Temple had always been the heart of Coruscant. When he closed his eyes and grasped at meditation, he thought of </span>
  <em>
    <span>home </span>
  </em>
  <span>and the bright laughter of the younglings and the austere warmth of the knights and masters, and above all he thought of the soft green blush of life in the Room of a Thousand Fountains. The archives, the training salles, the grand stone steps, and even the council chambers, all filled to bursting with the feeling of life and the echoes of the past. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Countless other beings had traversed the same hallways that Qui-Gon’s feet led him down. He wondered if the inlaid floors would be worn concave from the history they carried, and for a moment, he considered stooping to check. How many gaggles of padawans had stormed from one end of this passage to the next, how many failed initiates? </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Not too many, these days, he decided, and forced his thoughts away as he pushed onwards.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>There was something of a galactic crisis happening at the moment, one that Qui-Gon might have felt guilty about causing, if that were the sort of thing that bothered him these days. Turned out assassinating a legally appointed head of state while on the cusp of civil war was not a great way to protect the prosperity of the status quo, even if that head of state was, you know, </span>
  <em>
    <span>a sith. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span> Qui-Gon adjusted the strap of his rifle where it rested on his shoulder, a comforting weight despite its failure to cleanly execute the sith, feeling that low level agitation that had begun to follow him like an unpleasant haze. The lightsabers in the bottom of his traveling sack knocked together damningly. One from a mentor, one from an apprentice, neither of which Qui-Gon had any claim to.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>I did the right thing, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he told himself firmly, and might even have believed it if he could decide what he was referring to. Instead, he pushed his thoughts away and just enjoyed being able to walk down the halls of his home unimpeded.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Even before he turned the last corner, Qui-Gon knew he was in the right place. His stride shortened and then finally came to a halt outside a door labeled </span>
  <em>
    <span>Krayt Clan</span>
  </em>
  <span>. He closed his own eyes and let the distinctive Force signature on the other side, as bright as the binary suns he had first felt it under, wash past him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Tatooine, Coruscant, Naboo. Qui-Gon opened his eyes, driving away lingering memories. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Instead, the memory of Anakin confiding in Palpatine, the </span>
  <em>
    <span>sith lord</span>
  </em>
  <span>, replaced them, and Qui-Gon had to grind his teeth to contain the swell of disgust and rage that prompted, lest he unceremoniously bring every remaining inhabitant of the temple down on his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The door opened smoothly with only a wave of his hand. Immediately, there was a spike of childish alarm that made Qui-Gon’s steps falter before he located a pair of large eyes peering at him from beneath the covers of a nearby bed.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Insomniac, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he thought fondly, instinctively, and felt ice creep down his spine. It should have been a familiar feeling after all these months, looking at something and seeing someone else, but it wasn’t.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Go to sleep,” Qui-Gon whispered gruffly, and with enough of the Force behind the suggestion that every bright spot of half-aware consciousness in the room dimmed immediately to the dull glow of deep sleep. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He did feel slightly bad about that. Qui-Gon quietly glided past where a small Zelstran girl had passed out with her mouth hanging wide open, with a dark spot of drool already accumulating on the pillow beneath her head. She wasn’t the only one. They all looked so young, and so innocent. He couldn’t imagine how that would shatter upon waking to find that Anakin Skywalker had been murdered while they slept.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>It is the right thing to do, </span>
  </em>
  <span>Qui-Gon reminded himself. He withdrew the blue lightsaber from his satchel. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I have already lost too much to the Dark side. </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I will not lose another,” he murmured. The haze began to creep across the edges of his mind in a way that was not altogether pleasant, but which gave him something to distract from the reality of watching young Anakin’s peaceful face appear in the eerie blue light cast by the blade. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No death,” Qui-Gon heard himself recite distantly, over a growing pain in his chest, and for some reason, in his </span>
  <em>
    <span>hand-- </span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“There is the Force,” a smooth voice finished for him, and the lightsaber exploded in Qui-Gon’s grip.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <strike>(o)</strike>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“-wake up. Master?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obi-Wan,” Qui-Gon slurred. His tongue felt like it had been replaced with a wad of cloth. He tried to open his eyes, and found that his right eye was glued shut; it stung when he reached up to fumble at the surrounding skin, but what was more alarming was how distant the pain felt. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Stop that,” Obi-Wan’s voice said scoldingly. Confused, Qui-Gon craned his neck upward -- </span>
  <em>
    <span>and when had he fallen to the floor?</span>
  </em>
  <span> -- certain that he shouldn’t be hearing the voice of his dead padawan. Then, there was the lightest of pressures on his wrist, and he flinched hard enough to feel something rip in his side, as if from very far away.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And even that discomfort fell away when his one working eye met clear blue he had never expected to see again in this lifetime. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Careful,” Obi-Wan said sardonically, dragging Qui-Gon’s hand away from where it had frozen on the unresponsive side of his face. “We wouldn't want you to hurt yourself.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Padawan.” The word caught in Qui-Gon’s throat. He barely managed to choke it out before slumping forward. A sob escaped when gentle arms wound around his shoulders soothingly, warm despite the many layers between them. It was all he could do not to crush Obi-Wan as he returned the hug.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s okay,” Qui-Gon said brokenly, an unsettling parallel to the last time he had held Obi-Wan. “It’ll be alright now, it’s all going to be okay, padawan, everything will be fine-” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>And on and on, until Qui-Gon could hardly tell what he was saying anymore. Obi-Wan said nothing, just buried his face in Qui-Gon’s shoulder. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obi-Wan,” he gasped, and the boy’s grip on Qui-Gon’s hopelessly filthy robes tightened. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m here,” Obi-Wan said softly.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon pulled back just enough to stare at him. “How,” he croaked, and reflexively told himself that the tremor in his voice was not an indicator of attachment. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Obi-Wan’s eyes met his, and a small frown creased his brow. For a moment, his gaze seemed to turn inwards. “You’ve got shrapnel across you entire face, Master, </span>
  <em>
    <span>stars</span>
  </em>
  <span>, can you even see out of that eye?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“What?” Qui-Gon blinked. Or, tried to. The pain finally came rushing in, and he had to bite back a shout as his flinch only further upset the barbs of metal under his skin. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You need to find treatment,” Obi-Wan said worriedly, and the furrow between his eyebrows deepened. “Do you have anyone you can contact?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ll just comm Windu and Yoda,” Qui-Gon joked weakly. “They’ll get me a suite in the healer’s wing.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Obi-Wan’s smile was rueful and infinitely gentle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We both know that’ll never be an option. Not anymore.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon lost his tentative grip on levity. “How are you here?” He asked. A hundred other questions raced madly through his mind.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>They all died off, one by one, as Obi-Wan’s gaze slid away from his. Qui-Gon tracked its trajectory and felt his mouth go dry when he saw Anakin Skywalker, who had slept through all of this. The boy’s sheets and the floor around him was blackened, glittering where the shattered remains of the lightsaber caught what little light there was. There was not a scratch on him.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’ve always been here, Master,” Obi-Wan said quietly, drawing Qui-Gon focus back. It was Qui-Gon’s turn to frown. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In the creché?” He asked, knowing that it was the wrong answer before Obi-Wan shook his head. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“In the Temple?” He tried again, thinking with a pang that perhaps the Council had found some way to intervene in the Unifying Force to restore his padawan. Had he been charging around like a two-legged bantha all this time, unaware?</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Obi-Wan shook his head again, although this time with a slight tilt to his lips, as if he had somehow picked up on that particular image. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The smile faded as Qui-Gon stiffened under the weight of a new possibility. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Are you a ghost?” He demanded, and tightened his grip on Obi-Wan’s shoulders until he thought he could feel bones grinding together beneath the skin. Obi-Wan’s youthful face betrayed no discomfort, though. He just sat there with his hands knotted into Qui-Gon’s robes, watching him with unwavering scrutiny. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” he said at last, and it took every shred of self-control Qui-Gon had not to collapse in despair.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I thought…” he trailed off. The padawan’s braid glinted at him, long and taunting, from where it lay across the boy’s shoulders. Reflected in Obi-Wan’s eyes, Qui-Gon saw the furious blaze had had left behind on Naboo. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” Qui-Gon said suddenly. “I’ve read about Force ghosts. And if you’re a ghost, how come I can do this?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>He tugged on the braid sharply, and was grimly satisfied when this did elicit a reaction. His padawan’s head jerked to accomodate the force of the pull, and for just a moment, Obi-Wan’s face shuttered. Then it passed, and something frighteningly like resignation replaced it.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You can do anything you want,” Obi-Wan said lightly. “I’m not that kind of ghost.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As Qui-Gon blinked, struggling to understand what shades of meaning that was hiding, the boy leaned ever so slightly backward, until Qui-Gon’s arms fell away almost without his noticing. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’m not a Force ghost,” said Obi-Wan. “I’m the kind of ghost that lives—“ the wizened once-Jedi barely resisted flinching out of his skin as a warm hand came to rest against the side of his face, “—in here.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon could feel his expression hardening, retreating behind the Jedi stoicism that had saved his life in many an impossible situation. He felt like a pond icing over; frigid and just as brittle. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“No,” he said sharply. “That can’t be. That isn’t how hallucinations work.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One sardonic eyebrow lifted. “Are you sure there’s a precedent?” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“If you’re only an extension of my mind,” Qui-Gon said feverishly, “then you’ll do anything I want.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Obi-Wan did not confirm or deny this, but the resignation in his eyes deepened.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>It came to Qui-Gon suddenly; something that he had observed in his padawan’s behavior with increasing frequency as the boy had grown older; something he knew Obi-Wan would never act on, if Obi-Wan this truly was.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon raised his shields and with bated breath, </span>
  <em>
    <span>thought</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>When padawan’s gaze darkened, Qui-Gon felt the last tenuous threads of hope in his chest pull tight. The fingers resting lightly on his temple slipped, feather-light, to rest on his jaw then, and the hope vanished, leaving Qui-Gon with a yawning chasm in its place, and steadily rising nausea.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon’s hand snaked out and caught the boy’s wrist in a vice-like grip. He wanted to scream, he wanted to throw up, he wanted to </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt someone</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Slowly, inevitably, he turned back to Anakin’s peacefully slumbering form.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Obi-Wan was silent— uncharacteristically silent, </span>
  <em>
    <span>hells</span>
  </em>
  <span> —as Qui-Gon rooted around in his satchel and eventually produced the gleaming chrome of a curved lightsaber. The red light of its blade glittered madly across its planes when he switched it on, and the shards of Obi-Wan’s desecrated lightsaber looked like scattered gemstones. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>As he leveraged himself to his feet with his rifle as a crutch, the walls themselves may as well have been bleeding.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Master,” Obi-Wan said. Qui-Gon turned to watch him stand with enviable grace. “Don’t do this.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon wordlessly ignored him. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“You don’t have to do this. The boy is scared and alone, and neither of those things should be punishable offenses, you know that as well as I do—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“He’s been tainted by the Dark Side,” Qui-Gon said angrily. “Palpatine got his claws into the boy’s mind, I saw it with my own eyes. If you’re an extension of my mind, you should know it, too.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“It’s not that simple—“</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Of course it is! Even now the Dark calls to him, while he’s dead to the world. Imagine the horrors he could cause if he’s given the chance!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“But we won’t know what good he could do until he’s given the chance,” Obi-Wan pleaded. “Are you really about to murder a child in cold blood, all over one interaction?”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Yes,” Qui-Gon snapped, and then had to catch himself against the wall, breathing heavily. The hum of the lightsaber in his hand felt wrong, but it pulled him toward the same goal he wanted, so he clutched it with two white-knuckled hands and advanced again. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>This is right, </span>
  </em>
  <span>he told himself, and received an affirmative hum. Another labored step forward, though, and he found his path blocked.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Master. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Qui-Gon,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” Obi-Wan pleaded. He threw out an arm when Qui-Gon growled and tried to duck around him. “No matter how important you think this is right now, if you’d only take a moment to think—“</span>
</p>
<p><span>“<em>Move</em>,”</span> <span>Qui-Gon said.</span></p>
<p>
  <span>Desperation dawned in Obi-Wan’s eyes as the distance to Anakin’s cot closed slowly, Qui-Gon attempting to bodily force his way forwards and Obi-Wan darting away only to show up in his path once again.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“I’d never forgive you,” Obi-Wan shouted. “If you kill that boy to punish yourself for not saving me, I’d never forgive you!”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Shut up!</span>
  </em>
  <span>” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The Force rose up, curling and decaying where it touched Qui-Gon’s mind, like a prosthetic that had never accepted its nerve endings. Whatever Damask had done had ruined it, and ruined a fundamental part of who Qui-Gon was, and all it did was give him a way to lash out in anger. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Which was just what he did.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Obi-Wan flew back under the force of the blow, a sharp cry escaping his lips before his back hit the wall. The noise cut off abruptly upon impact, and he crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon wavered. For a heartbeat the need to kill the last of the sith, the same need that had just cleared his path with single-minded violence, was overpowering. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>Just keep going, </span>
  </em>
  <span>the lightsaber in his hand crackled. </span>
  <em>
    <span>See it through,</span>
  </em>
  <span> it said. </span>
  <em>
    <span>He’s not even real.</span>
  </em>
</p>
<p>
  <span>But even from where he stood, hunched awkwardly with the butt of his rifle under his arm as a crutch, Qui-Gon could see the bloom of blood on Obi-Wan’s tunic. In the end, that red called to him more urgently than the red of the blade. He took one stumbling step towards his fallen padawan, then another, and another, until he could finally collapse as well. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Obi-Wan,” he rasped. “Get up, Padawan.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>The red stain retreated in on itself. Qui-Gon felt a pang as the blood disappeared and Obi-Wan’s bright blue eyes opened to meet his, just the way they had not in the generator complex. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <em>
    <span>He’s not real, </span>
  </em>
  <span>some desolate part of him howled, but Qui-Gon was past caring. He gathered his padawan into his arms again and felt the tension seep out of his shoulders when Obi-Wan returned the embrace. Distantly, he wondered if the other Jedi would see him cradling empty air when they inevitably burst in. Surely his outburst had been felt all the way to Jedha.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We should go,” Obi-Wan said, muffled. Qui-Gon glanced down at him, and then back at the cot across the room.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>Obi-Wan sighed. “Don’t.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>After a moment, Qui-Gon echoed his sigh and got to his feet laboriously. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Four out of five’s not bad,” he said weakly, and Obi-Wan harrumphed. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Anakin is not a Sith,” he said. </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“We’ll see,” Qui-Gon hummed, tucking his hands into his sleeves mysteriously. “Regardless, we will be keeping a close eye on him from here on out. A </span>
  <em>
    <span>very </span>
  </em>
  <span>close eye.”</span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>“Whatever you say, Master,” Obi-Wan said crisply. “Are you hungry?</span>
  <span>” </span>
</p>
<p>
  <span>One last time, Qui-Gon glanced back at where young Anakin Skywalker still slept. Dooku’s lightsaber was a patient weight in his palm; whatever he chose from now on, it would bide its time by his side. </span>
</p>
<p>"Straved," he said at length, and found it to be very true all of a sudden. "How about Dex's?"</p>
<p>Obi-Wan smiled. </p>
<p>
  <span>Qui-Gon Jinn slipped his old master’s weapon into his satchel, shouldered his rifle, and walked out the door, out of the Temple, and off the map, for good this time.</span>
</p>
<p>
  <strike>
    <span>(o)</span>
  </strike>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The End! </p>
<p>As with all the crap I try to write, this probably ended up being high concept with no execution. I had big dreams for this, I swear I did! Maybe someday, when (if) I get the time, I could try to work out some of the pacing issues in this story.</p>
<p>But until then, I hope you enjoyed it, or at least some parts of it, and wherever you are, whenever you are, reading this or dimly remembering it, I hope you have only the best of luck in whatever it is you've set your mind to. May your supply of toilet paper be never ending, and may you never run out of shit to read.</p>
<p>-xoxo PCP</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Listen, I'm not a good writer. I'm amateur at best, and if you know anything at all about all the stuff I tried to post a few years back, you know that as soon as I loose motivation, bing bang boom, stick a fork in me, I'm done. But every once in a while, a concept will escape my brain quick enough and emerge fully grown on a word document. When that happens? I want to share it. </p><p>Now, that isn't to say that I intend to leave this fic at one chapter in perpetuity (note the expected chapter count). It just means that it may be a while between chapter updates. A long while. No kidding. So here's your homework between chapter updates: if you liked this, go watch Taken (2008), then both volumes of Kill Bill, then all three John Wick movies. If you've already seen them, watch them again.</p><p>-xoxo PCP</p></blockquote></div></div>
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